Pull out all the stops ! Geraldine McCaughrean

Geraldine McCaughrean's latest book is Pull out all the stops! (OUP 2010) - to be published in America as The Glorious Adventures of the Sunshine Queen (Harper Collins, 2011). It continues the story of Cissy and Kookie from Stop the Train but you don't have to have read the first one to enjoy this one.

I am a great fan of Geraldine McCaughrean's writing - every page seems to have an image or description which I find I want to read it out aloud to someone and say "listen to this..." Here's one on a page I just opened - old Elijah who steers the riverboat has an unreliable memory "Memories only came to Elijah sporadically - like post to an African explorer."

Here is a synopsis from the publisher's website : Cissy Sissney has always longed for a life filled with adventure, and her wish is unexpectedly granted when she is sent to live aboard the Sunshine Queen—a shipwrecked paddle steamer that houses the Bright Lights Theater Company. When the showboat is carried back out to sea, the motley crew on board embarks on a wild and hilarious journey. But along the way, one of their own falls into grave danger…and Cissy learns that the stakes of fame are higher than she could possibly have imagined.
Renowned storyteller Geraldine McCaughrean weaves a rip-roaring river adventure that’s chock-full of sidesplitting humor and daring escapades. Readers won’t be able to resist riding along on the Sunshine Queen’s thrilling journey in this fun and accessible tale.

Set in 1894 on the Missouri River and its tributaries, it is funny (the part with Kookie in the river with the alligator had me laughing almost too hard to read it aloud to a friend) and action packed - a tall tale, full of larger-than-life characters in life-and-death situations, imaginative, adventurous and brilliantly written.

Here is a review on LoveReading4kids by Julia Ecccleshare :
http://www.lovereading4kids.co.uk/book/5854/Pull-Out-All-the-Stops!-by-Geraldine-Mccaughrean.html

It would make a great readaloud, and there is an audio book too.

Here is Geraldine's website : http://www.geraldinemccaughrean.co.uk/

The Death Defying Pepper Roux

I've just finished The Death Defying Pepper Roux by Geraldine McCaughrean (said Ma-cork-run, according to her website) and LOVED it !

It is published by Oxford University Press, the National Library has it to borrow, and the paperback is due in September.

For the best introduction to the book, listen here to the author talk about it...
http://fds.oup.com/www0.oup.com/pepperroux/media.html

and there is plenty more to explore on her website about it, her "book of the moment", including reviews, activities and downloadable poster http://www.geraldinemccaughrean.co.uk/bkm.htm

Here is a wonderful review of it by Frank Cottrell Boyce in The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/mar/27/death-defying-pepper-roux-geraldine-mccaughrean
in which he finishes, "The publisher's blurb compares Pepper Roux to the movie Amélie, largely because they're both set in France. This is like comparing the siege of Stalingrad to the Eurovision song contest because they both involve Russians and Germans. Pepper Roux is much funnier, much more stylish and much more profound. If you want to compare it to something else you could try Borges or Garcia Márquez."

If you don' t know this clever, entertaining, prolific, varied author, check out some of her books - Stop the Train, Pack of Lies, and The Kite Rider are some of my favourites...

The Death Defying Pepper Roux would make a great read-aloud for intermediate / junior secondary level, as would many of Geraldine McCaughrean's other books, thanks to her talent for telling a lively story with imagination and depth.

For people looking for class novels a la Louis Sachar's Holes, this could fit the bill, though I have to say that I have real reservations about whole class sets of novels from my own experience as a school student - and a reader - when I found them excruciating.

See also Donalyn Miller's posts on the subject of whole-class novels in the archives of her Book Whisperer blog, along with suggestions for alternative strategies :

One size does not fit all (Parts 1 and 2 - January 2008)
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/book_whisperer/2008/01/
"My seventeen year-old-daughter is what we call here in Texas, “a long, tall drink of water." I, on the other hand, have a full-figured glass that has overflowed. When shopping, we laugh when we see clothes sporting tags that claim “one size fits all” remarking, “Not us!”
Stretch this t-shirt over the ubiquitous practice in reading classrooms of teaching whole-class novels, and you can see that it doesn't fit most readers..."